Holding It Up
by practical cynicism
Summary: Want to know the real reason why the GetBackers’ money seems to disappear every single time they get paid? Well, read and find out!


**Holding It Up**

**By Dimantrien**

**A/N – **The content of this fic (and the reason why the GB duo always loses money) is entirely non-canonical. Don't believe the ending. For amusement purposes and a bunch of laughs only. Non-yaoi.

The bells over the entrance jingled as Natsumi entered the Honky Tonk, ready to start her shift. As usual, Wan Paul was behind the counter, reading the newspaper. Ginji was sitting on a stool at the counter, looking thoroughly miserable with his head in his hands. Ban was nowhere in sight.

"What's wrong, Ginji-san?" Natsumi asked concernedly as she went behind the counter and grabbed an apron, tying the strings behind her neck.

Ginji lifted his head. "Ban-chan just called. The Beetle got towed again…we just lost all our money on the last mission because of all those parking tickets! And I'm really hungry right now, and Master won't give me food…Natsumi-chan, help me…" He said all this in a mournful tone, giving Natsumi the full blast of his you-know-I'm-cute-and-irresistible-puppy-dog-eyes. Natsumi, unguarded, was sucked in immediately.

"Don't worry, Ginji-san, I'll give you a slice of cake…" Natsumi assured with a cheerful smile, swiftly acting on her promise by removing a saucer from the dish rack and carefully loading a slice of chocolate cake onto it.

Wan Paul spoke up over chibi Ginji's delighted squeals of "Arigato, Natsumi-chan!!!"

"You know that the price of that slice of cake will be deducted from your salary."

Natsumi sweatdropped, and it was clear that the effect of the puppy-dog-eyes was fading. "Aa…"

Ginji stumbled into his and Ban's apartment about two hours later, having successfully wheedled Natsumi into giving him a whole pizza to go with the chocolate cake. Natsumi-chan was just so nice…but it was kinda weird how she looked like she was in a trance whenever she gave him the food he asked for…

He heard movements in the kitchen-doubling-as-a-dining-room, and it took him only a few strides to get there (the place they rented wasn't at all big, as you could imagine from their financial status). "Ban-chan, tadaima… Ban-chan? What are you doing?"

Ban, who was crouching in front of the cabinet under the sink, abruptly slammed it shut and turned around. "G-ginji! So…you're home already? Good for you, don't stay out too late…"

Ginji looked at him quizzically. "Is there something wrong?" He made to move over to where Ban was standing.

Ban shook his head rapidly and hustled Ginji out of the room, answering, "No, no, nothing's wrong; there was just a little problem with the sink and I fixed it."

"Honto ni? I didn't know you were so good at household things, Ban-chan," Ginji commented, impressed.

Ban just smirked. "Well, you know me, I'm a jack of all trades," he replied cockily. "Now go get some sleep; we have to hand out fliers again tomorrow and we won't get a job if you act like an insomniac zombie!" He shoved Ginji into the bedroom and slammed it behind him. Moments later he could hear the sound of sheets rustling and knew that the blonde had obeyed his command and had gone straight to bed.

He leaned against the door and breathed a sigh of relief.

"That was close."

The next day, they got an extremely easy job from an old lady who wanted to get an expensive bracelet back from a mugger, and she must've been desperate to get it back for her to pay them quite a large sum. Ban silently thanked the gods and the sentimental value that people held over their things.

Their high remuneration certainly had Ginji in high spirits ("Wai, we'll be able to eat decent food for the next few weeks, Ban-chan!!!" After which Ban's fist promptly collided with the top of the blonde's head, and people looked at them like they had recently sold their sanity to the black market). They treated themselves to sukiyaki at the most expensive restaurant in the neighborhood, and by the time they had finished (and made the restaurant run out of meat), they still had plenty of money left over.

Ban volunteered to drive to the grocery store and replenish their nonexistent stock of food and other necessities at home, and dropped Ginji off at the Honky Tonk.

He was only gone for an hour when Ginji's cell phone rang.

"Moshi moshi?" Ginji said enthusiastically into the phone.

"Ginji? It's Ban."

"Ban-chan! Oh, I almost forgot to tell you, Master ran out of milk here at the café and wants you to get it for him…he said he'll pay you later—"

"Correction, I'm _not_ going to pay you, seeing as you still haven't paid your debts for the past three months," Wan Paul interrupted behind the counter. Ginji sweatdropped and tuned back into what Ban was saying.

"…not possible. I kind of…parked at a towing zone again…"

"Oh no…not again, Ban-chan!" Ginji wailed. "How much money do we have left?" Silence. "…Ban-chan?"

There was another long pause, before the blonde heard a long, irritated sigh at the other end. "Um…two thousand yen."

Chibi Ginji was close to tears now. "Demo…we lost that much money?" He could almost imagine Ban wincing at the other end.

"…That much money," Ban repeated.

There was another long pause, in which chibi Ginji lay flat against the counter, bemoaning the curse that the money gods had laid upon him. Then a thought occurred to him, and he quickly spoke, "You _did_ get to the grocery store before that, didn't you?" he asked hopefully.

"Uh…no?"

Ginji's agonized cry was heard all the way down the street, and Wan Paul, with ears covered, threatened him to shut up, else face the consequences of paying a fee for broken windows and other objects made of glass. The threat obviously worked; Ginji did _not_ need another debt on top of their virtually moneyless state. Ban had ended the call long before that, fearing permanent loss of hearing in his right ear.

Two hours later, Ban drove the Beetle in front of the Honky Tonk, where Ginji was gloomily waiting. Ginji climbed into the car and didn't speak for a moment. He knew how pissed off Ban could get after a tow zone incident. Surprisingly, though, Ban was his normal detached self, and wasn't muttering colorful profanities under his breath every few seconds.

"Ban-chan…daijoubu?" Ginji asked uncertainly. The brunette certainly wasn't acting like they had just lost a huge amount of money.

Ban gave him a strange look, as if he didn't know what Ginji was talking about. "Huh? Why wouldn't I be…oh, you mean the money? I'm fine with that, we'll just have to get more jobs in the next few days. Who knows, maybe Hevn will show up. Besides, we did get to eat a lot at that restaurant, right?"

Okay, now Ginji was _sure _that this was an imposter. Ban _never _talked positive right after they lost money! Heck, he didn't act optimistic even when they had dough on them! Right then, he wanted to jump out of his seat and demand, 'Who are you and what have you done to Ban-chan?!' Of course, as he was inside a moving car and was pretty sure that Ban didn't have an evil twin brother, that option was out of the question. So he settled for replying, "I guess so…"

Something was definitely up. And Ginji was determined to find out _what_.

That night, it was Ban's turn to sleep in the bedroom (they took turns and switched every other night, while the other slept on the couch).

It was for this reason that Ginji woke up earlier than usual to feel something crawling on his left hand. He opened one brown eye and came face to face with a cockroach. "AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!! Gokiburi!!!" he yelled, jumping up and frying the roach with his electricity. It lay dead (and crispy) on the floor mere milliseconds later.

Not that Ginji was scared of cockroaches, but they were, well, disgusting. Ginji trudged into the kitchen and went to the sink, wanting to get rid of all traces of the insect on his hand as soon as possible. He turned the faucet on. No water came out.

_What the? I thought Ban-chan fixed this already, _Ginji thought grumpily. He was usually a morning person, but who could be in a jolly mood after waking up to a cockroach taking a leisure stroll on their hand? Stooping down, he opened the cabinet under the sink to see how Ban had "fixed" the pipes.

What he saw when he opened the cabinet was not what he had expected. It was filled to overflowing with…

Hair gel. And mousse. And hair spray.

Ginji briskly stood up and opened a cupboard. There were even more hair care products in there than in the cabinet. He could feel his hair rising with the amount of static electricity steadily surrounding him.

He opened another cupboard. And another. And another. And another…until all of them had their doors hanging open.  They all held the same things. He felt as if he were inside a salon's stock room…

The cutlery in the corner was starting to respond to the electromagnetic waves that the former Thunder Emperor generated. He stood there for a few minutes, steadily gaining power, when he heard footsteps approaching, and someone yawning loudly.

"Oi, Ginji, what are you doing up so—" Ban noticed the state of the room…and Ginji. And the first thing that popped into his mind was, _Oh shit. _

"Ban-chan…" Ginji said dangerously. The air crackled with electricity.

"Uh…Ginji…I can explain," Ban said hastily, starting to back away. If he could just surreptitiously inch toward the door and make a run for it, he just might survive…

Ginji's usually kind brown eyes were blazing furiously. "I thought you said we didn't have any money, that the towing fees completely cleaned us out…"

"Well…er…actually, I _did_ run into a couple of cops the other day…" Ban stalled, making small, shuffling steps in the direction of the doorway and at the same time trying to rack up an ingenious excuse that would calm his temporarily murderous partner.

"We even had to do with _starving _for days because we were always '_broke'_…" Ginji continued in a quieter but more deadly tone, eerily reminding Ban of a certain homicidal transporter. "And all this time you were just spending our money on _hair gel!!!_" The light bulb in the room burst and plunged them in semi-darkness, as Ginji was still radiating a tremendous amount of electrical energy. It only made him look all the more ominous against the blackness surrounding him.

All shreds of reason and logic abandoned Ban's mind as Ginji advanced toward him. "But I _need _them, I mean, _my_ _hair_ needs them. Do you have any idea how much time I spend trying to perfect these spikes? How much gel it takes to hold it all up? Think about how annoying it is when it rains and ruins everything! That's half a can of hairspray wasted! And they're so damn expensive nowadays too, especially the best brands!" he babbled.

The only response he got was a 1000-watt electric surge directed at him, which he promptly dodged.

"It's not just for me, you know! We have to look presentable if we want any clients to come to us. And you have to admit good looks merit us a lot of plus points right at the first pitch, 'specially if the client's a woman…"

Ginji couldn't take it anymore. All those sleepless nights dealing with an empty stomach…all those luxurious, classy, foreign dishes served in fancy restaurants where he had always been denied entry because of lack of moolah…all those countless times that Wan Paul nagged them to pay their tab…all those times that he had to rely on his cuteness and irresistibility to hoodwink his friends into treating him to a free meal…all the pizzas, pork buns, sushi, cakes, donuts, ice cream, and even _candy _that he hadn't been able to afford…

"Uh…Ginji? C'mon, don't act like that… You wouldn't kill your own partner, would you? It's just a little bit of hairspray… Dammit, don't look at me like that, you're scaring the shit outta me…"

But all of Ban's efforts were in vain, because the only thing that the Raitei could sense was the roaring of blood in his ears and the tantalizing visions of delectable treats flashing one by one past his mind's eye…

All…

That…

_Food_…

"AAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BAN-CHAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

People wondered what caused the power shortage that had swept all over Shinjuku shortly afterward.

A/N – Like it? Hate it? Er…thought as much. If it wasn't funny in the least, I blame it all on Juubei. His pathetic sense of humor must be rubbing off on me.  Why did I attribute all of the money loss to Ban, you ask? Because Ginji doesn't need hair gel! All he has to do is conjure up a bit of electricity and voila! Instant spikes!


End file.
